The Jump-Off Creek

by Molly Gloss

  She brought the frozen milk up to the house and thawed it on the stove, Lars’s big coat thawing out too while she stood there in it shivering and drinking the milk down hot. The wind hissed through the holes in the house where the cement chinking had cracked and fallen out. It was too cold to do any handwork, or even to write. She heated stones on the stove and took them to bed and pulled the quilts up to cover her head. The frozen rain ticked against the shingles of the roof and gusted up against the walls with a sound like gravel. The black wind racketed in the trees. She pulled the rag rug up off the floor and covered the quilts with it.

  When daylight showed between the cracks of the house she unwillingly gave up the bed to get a fire made in the cold stove. There was a heavy rime of ice on the rug and on the stove, frozen puddles on the floor. She laid her clothes on the stove and came back to bed to lie shivering watching them thaw. Afterward, she broke up the ice on the floor, swept it up in a hillock and thawed it in a kettle for the animals. The door was iced shut. She had to kick and pry at it stubbornly until the seal broke and the door swung to let her out.

  The freezing rain still fell on the wind. From the eaves of the house and the shed and the privy, ice hung in long white braids. The trees, the stumps were glazed and satiny. The little Jump-Off Creek trickled bare and blackish-looking, caged in ice.

  Between the house and the shed the ground was beaten down smooth and the ice overlaid it in a slick, opaque sheet. Her boot soles were worn smooth as the ice. She took a couple of slipping steps and went down sideways, holding the kettle up sloppily level so the water wouldn’t be much spilled. Her wrist was cut on the sharp ice, between the edge of her glove and the sleeve of her coat, and she stood again slowly, sucking on it, and then bracing the sore hand on the wall of the house, setting the heels of her boots down watchfully, deliberately, and holding the big kettle low. She went a long way around to the shed, staying close to the brush fence where the uneven ground gave a little better footing. The rain fell slanting and gray, ticking on the brim of her hat, blowing up under it hard and stinging as sand.

  She came all the way around slowly to the east end, the open end of the shed, before she saw the caved-in corner of it where the wind had dropped a tree across the back edge of the roof. The logs had slipped down there and the roof had given way, slumping in like old thatch. One of the does, it was Louise, lay dead in the frozen straw at the back of the shed. Rose and her kid and the good steady mule had bolted out, were gone.

  She stood holding onto the brittle, icy twigs of the brush fence, staring at this defeat. Then grimly she tipped out the water and carried the empty pail back to the house. She wrapped up her boots in strips of rag, pushed a piece of rope and the mule’s bridle down in a pocket of Lars’s coat, and went out again.

  She went up the clearing along the rough track of the log-drag because they would have gone with the wind behind them. Under the trees, the way was a tangle of downed limbs and windfalls, the brush splayed out with the weight of the ice. She made a deliberate trail through it, tramping on the brittle white branches. She went past the bare tree-cut up the gorge of the Jump-Off. The gully stayed narrow, pinched between the ridges, only widening a little wherever a seasonal creek had cut a trough crosswise to the Jump-Off. She went painstakingly up each of those dead ends, breaking a track through the icy brush and listening for the goat’s bell, or whistling for the mule when she could get a sound out of her cold stiff chin, numbed lips.

  She had been up this far, fishing the creek, but it was another place now in the white glaze and wreckage of the ice. Limbs broke and fell in a shower whenever the wind gusted, scattering needles and knives of ice. There were countless downed trees as well, and trees still falling intermittently, so that when the wind came up hard she stood in one place and waited, with her shoulders hunched up in a reflex, as if they would take the weight of what might hit her. The rain kept up, blowing along her back. Where her hair straggled out below the hat, it froze to the collar of the gray coat; when she turned her head or bent it down, she heard her hair breaking, as brittle as twigs. There was no track of the mule or the goat under the ice. But she kept the wind behind her and went on doggedly.

  The creek divided. She stood at the fork, not able to choose, and then saw the thing lying dead, half in the water, at a distance up the left branch. She stayed where she was, looking at it, blinking her eyelashes against the freezing rain. Then she went up slowly. It wasn’t the mule. She had to come right up to it to be sure. It was a thin old cow, black and white, under a skin of ice. The cow’s knees were bent under a little, as if she had knelt there first and then tipped over along her side. The carcass was whole, not eaten or cut into. There was no telling what had killed the cow, but no bait had been made of it anyway. Under the scabby ice, the brand had the plain shape of the Half Moon.

  Lydia stood in the sleeting wind and stared at the cow. She had kept away from Tim Whiteaker’s since Mr. Odell was buried. She had felt a dim fear of calling on him—something not to do with the cruel shootings, but with Mr. Whiteaker’s bare and burning look. She didn’t know why the old dead cow with his brand on it drove her now suddenly to tears on his account. The tears were cold, few, and straightaway they froze. She had to take a glove off and pick open her icy eyelashes. She peered unhappily along the icebound gully where the cow lay. The wind blew hard, showering ice in a loud, jagged spattering. She pulled up her shoulders until it was done and then determinedly went up the fork of the creek.

  She had come away from the house without eating anything, had not even drunk coffee. Hunger was not much of a difficulty, she shut her mind to it. But the narrowing branch of the creek was sealed in ice and she suffered from the want of water. She knew enough not to suck on ice: it deepened the thirst. Twice, she beat through the crust of the creek with a stick and a rock and got a hand down to the water underneath, bringing it up in palmfuls, insufficient, and teeth-aching cold.

  Eventually she found the mule. A tree had toppled in some other wind, the weight of it pulling over the root mass intact so the big wheel of dirt and root, in a white glaze of ice, stood high and flat upwind and Rollin was in the dark lee of it with his head down, abject and solitary.

  Mules and horses were social, she had never known one who liked to be alone. Rollin, after the other mule was dead, had got to like the company of the goats. Often he trailed Rose in at night, following the bell. Lydia had kept out a little hope they would be found together. So she came up to the mule dourly, as if finding him was the discouragement. She got the bridle out of a coat pocket and put it stiffly on him. Ice had balled in his feet and she hadn’t brought a pick, might not have been able to chip his shoes clean anyway. So she didn’t get up on his back. She took him by the bridle and led him back downstream—he had come up this way without the goat, or Rose would have been found there with him.

  He wasn’t happy, facing into the sleet. He pulled his head around stubbornly and stopped, hunching up his hindquarters. She dragged at him and hit him with a stick and finally he came around. She found she had to walk in front of his muzzle, breaking the wind, or every little while he would stop again and try to put his rump to the stinging rain.

  The backs of both her hands ached dully. She had been frostbitten along the backs of her hands once and ever since had been prone to freeze there when the weather was bitter. The gloves she had were sheep’s suede with the fleece turned in, they were good gloves but too big for her hands—they had been Lars’s. She regularly changed about which hand held the mule’s lead, and kept the other one always shoved down in the pocket of Lars’s coat. She pulled up the collar of the coat and sank her chin in it and stumped thick-footed through the icy brush. She went by the dead cow without turning her head.

  At the fork she turned out of the wind and went up the other branch. Shortly, the way became rocky, narrow, steep. She left the mule with his lead made fast to a tree and kept on a while, climbing up cautiously, holding on to the brush. The rocks were slick,
glazed with ice. Finally she stood up straight, gasping air, and looking ahead along the rough steep gorge.

  Damn. She could not articulate it. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick and cold.

  She peered into the wind, back down the way she had come. The mule stood sullenly with his whiskery muzzle trailing ice in a long white beard.

  She climbed down slowly to the mule and stood a moment with her forehead against his cold neck and then she led him bleakly down the gully of the Jump-Off Creek. It was hard, going down against the wind. She kept her chin down, taking the sharp rain on the crown of her hat and stumbling shortsighted with her stare fixed on her boots. Her eyes teared helplessly and the tears froze so that she had to take a glove off every little while to pick the ice from her lashes. Wherever the ground was smooth, the mule was apt to slip on his icy shoes. She undid the rags from her own feet and put them numbly on his. But she was never done with persuading him. She hauled him down the long way home slowly, by fits and starts.

  She had to drag the dead goat out from beneath the broken-down corner of the shed roof before the mule would stand under it. Then she tied him there on a stout rope and went in the house. Her hands were stiff. She fumbled, nursing a smoky fire in the stove, and stood over it while ice was melted again in the kettle. Her hands began to burn. She didn’t want to go back out in the stinging rain and wind, across the slick field to the shed. But she took hold of the kettle grimly, and clutched a handful of precious sheaf oats in her other hand, and shoved the door back with her hip.

  The mule pushed his nose down in the water. She pulled his head up after a moment and numbly walked him back and forth along the front edge of the shed. Then she let him drink again loudly, bumping his muzzle against the bottom of the kettle in his nervous thirst. Lydia heard a scrabble on the ice and looked. Rose led her kid out of the brush, coming anxiously across the field for the water. The clapper of the bell was frozen, but on the goat’s long fleece hard marbles of ice rattled flatly. Lydia stood and looked, with her hands in her coat pockets and her shoulders hunched up coldly.

  Rose came in under the edge of the shed and pushed her face down eagerly in the kettle. The mule had begun to snuffle the sheaf oats by then, and the goat licked the cold tin with her tongue and blatted and pushed the empty kettle around. She wouldn’t stand still for the kid, trying to get at her teat. Lydia looked at her, without the energy for feeling. She took the piece of rope out of her coat. It was stiff, rimed with ice. She put it around the doe’s neck and tied the end around one of the poles of the shed. Her fingers worked the knots poorly, laboriously. Crossing the field with the empty kettle, she fell on the ice and sat there crying dryly, tiredly. But she got up after a while and went on the rest of the way, because the goat was bawling, thirsty, waiting for her.

  36

  11 Dec Bright today and cold, the old Snow under the trees & on the North sides of the ridges frozen hard. Went over in the Morning to Mr Whiteaker’s with potatoes & a squash and had a Visit, tho I had dreaded it and put off going rather longer than was kind. The missing Dog of his has come meekly home, no telling where he had been or if the other was poisoned after all. Mike Walker had told me Mr Whiteaker was brooding over this, imagining events might have ended differently if the Dog had been found on the Day. But he keeps the Dog in the house w him, it may be as company against Loneliness, and I believe he does not hold the poor dog to account, no more than Fate. We had a good talk once started, comprising of the prospects for more Snow & of our supplies holding out & sick Cows & Mrs Walker’s successful delivery of a Son. He said the Jump-Off Creek was named due to the Whitman party camping along it in 1837 on their way to starting the mission at Waiilatpu, it was the “jump-off point” for crossing the Summit of the Blue Mts & down onto the Walla Walla plain. I was rather foolishly happy when I heard it, as Narcissa Whitman & Eliza Spalding in that Party were the first White Women to cross the Continent and I believe I felt some kinship w them. On account of our speaking of names, I got up courage & deliberately asked him if Mr. Odell was named for the Blue Mts or if it was part of a longer Indian naming. He was not unhappy w my raising the name of the dead, it could be he was glad for it. He said No & told a long story about a near-drowning in a frozen lake & Mr Odell brought up blue as block-ice, thought to be dead, and when left in a cold room he came Awake & afterwards always was called Blue. His true given name, which not many knew, was Lincoln, after the President. He had rather less Indian about him than seemed. We had a talk about putting up Hay, Mr Whiteaker more disposed to it than beforetime. When I said I had made Hay, he said he would learn it from me if I would teach him, and I said I would.

  A MARINER READER’S GUIDE TO

  The Jump-Off Creek

  by

  MOLLY GLOSS

  “As plain and durable as hardtack, but a good deal tastier. With careful, precise language, Gloss reaches back a century.”

  —Milwaukee Journal

  For Discussion

  1. What details of frontier life emerge from Molly Gloss’s portrait of the Blue Mountain homesteaders in the 1890s? What is the significance of the name Jump-Off Creek for Lydia and the earlier pioneer women with whom she feels kinship?

  2. What has driven Lydia Sanderson to homestead on her own in the remote, sparsely populated Blue Mountains of Oregon? What is the significance of her statement to Blue Odell that “I was seeking the boundless possibilities that are said to live on the frontier”? What are some of these boundless possibilities, and do they change for Lydia?

  3. In chapter four, we learn that Lydia “had a habit of going quick in these events, before the misgiving would set in.” What instances are we shown of Lydia’s “going quick” when confronted with difficulty or danger? In what ways does this habit serve her well, or not?

  4. Lydia writes in her journal, “I am used to being Alone, in spirit if not body, and shall not be Lonely, as I have never been inclined that way.” Yet Evelyn Walker, in chapter sixteen, reflects on her own loneliness and triggers a similar unspoken response from Lydia. How does Lydia deal with being alone?

  5. In chapter twelve, Blue sees Lydia “hiding [a] little flash of satisfaction” when she brings down a calf for the first time. Why does this incident fill Lydia with such satisfaction? What other activities provide Lydia with a sense of satisfaction, reward, or pleasure?

  6. How would you describe the reality of women’s lives on the northwestern frontier? How do Lydia, Evelyn Walker, and Doris Oberfield each cope with the challenges of living as a woman, single or married, on the frontier?

  7. Every once in a while, Lydia feels “a sudden itchy need for sympathy, or for forgiveness,” or just for some human interaction. In what ways does she deal with those needs? Does she fully appreciate the limitations of the life she has chosen?

  8. Why do you think details of Lydia’s past in Pennsylvania and her reasons for heading west begin to emerge nearly halfway through the novel, after we have already begun to form an impression of her? What details of Lydia’s past help to explain her determination to go it alone, and eventually change our view of her?

  9. As she is stitching up Blue’s back, we read that Lydia “was tender, but pitiless, having never gained pity and so never learning it.” What are some of the hardships endured by Lydia and the others that require both tenderness and an absence of pity?

  10. What might be Tim’s motives for suggesting marriage to Lydia, and Lydia’s for saying no? What other indications are there that marriage is expected of Lydia and other women?

  11. As cold nights return in October, Lydia admits that she “had no instinct yet for the weather in this country.” How does Lydia prepare for the onset of winter? Are her preparations adequate?

  12. One of Tim Whiteaker’s infrequent aphorisms is “Carelessness is something that will get people killed.” What does he mean by this? What instances are there of carelessness and of caregiving, and what are the consequences of each?

  13. Lydia notes that Tim and Blue
’s house “looked well established and was soundly built.” And Gloss adds, “She set a high value on those things.” What are some other examples of what Lydia values?

  14. In her first journal entry at Jump-Off Creek, Lydia writes, “I have not lost Heart, having done so in years past and no false hopes this time. There are Graces at all events.” What are the “Graces” to which she refers? Which additional graces does she discover during the subsequent six months?

  15. What impact does the wolf bounty have on the motivations and actions of the Blue Mountain homesteaders, trappers, and ranchers? What are its consequences?

  16. What is “the quick, small grief” that Lydia unexpectedly feels when she learns that Evelyn Walker will go to her mother’s to have her baby? Why does Lydia experience this grief, which she finds inexplicable?

  17. What are some of the ways in which the outside world encroaches on the inhabitants of the Blue Mountains?

  18. How does The Jump-Off Creek change what you thought you knew about the West, men’s and women’s roles on the frontier, and homesteading at the turn of the century? What was the biggest surprise or challenge to a preconception you might have had about frontier homesteading?

  MARINER BOOKS/HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY